At lunchtime Thursday, The Daily Beast retracted a column by long-time Washington, D.C. journalist Howard Kurtz. That post on The Daily Beast website incorrectly claimed that Jason Collins, the NBA center who recently came out as gay in a Sports Illustrated op-ed, had not mentioned his previous engagement to a woman.
That error appeared to be the last straw for Kurtz on Thursday. At 3:04 p.m. Thursday, Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown announced on Twitter the Kurtz and her outlet have parted ways.
.@thedailybeast & @howardkurtz have parted company…we wish him well
— Tina Brown (@TheTinaBeast) May 2, 2013
Shortly after that, The Daily Beast issued a statement that gave no more details about Kurtz’s departure, but pointed to John Avlon’s leadership at its Washington bureau:
“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company. Under the direction of our newly named political director John Avlon we have added new momentum and authority to our Washington bureau with columnists such as Jon Favreau, Joshua Dubois and Stuart Stevens joining our outstanding DC team of Eleanor Clift, Daniel Klaidman, Michael Tomasky, Eli Lake, David Frum and Michelle Cottle – giving us one of the best politics teams in the business which was instrumental in this week’s Webby win for Best News site.”
UPDATE: Kurtz posts his side of the story on Twitter
This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website.
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 2, 2013
Newsweek and the Beast are great brands, but the time had come for me to move on to other opportunities.
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 2, 2013